Sunday, 28 June 2009

My parents have been lost in mazes. They are a good team with Dad drawing designs on canvas and Mum stitching. This is a cushion based on a maze in Williamsburg, made in green and cream carpet yarn, in loopy rug stitches. There are more mazes on the way and we will be selling them as kits once I have printed the designs onto the canvas. Mazes are amazing. Some of them are quite spiritual places and designed for pilgrims to crawl around on all fours in deep prayer. However hooking with wool could be a lot more comfortable, and a wonderful way to loose oneself.

Thank you Miriam Zadik Gold for introducing us to all the Mary Jane's. It is lovely having them a to stay in our shop window! There is a Mary Jane for every mood, and our customers have been grooving with the headphones all week. Here we see Louise grooving to Nick Drake's Mary Jane and Linda grooving to Mary J Blige. Each scene gives us a lot of detail, many clues, all beautifully crafted, sometimes on a minute scale. Miriam had the idea after her aunty found and gave her six doll's heads. Miriam was crocheting her daughter some Mary Jane shoes and the six dolls heads looked down from the shelf and said 'Who Is Mary Jane?"

I have a different favourite every day, but here is Nick Drake's for you to enjoy.

Tuesday, 16 June 2009

Here is Ellen's first cardigan, which she started on March 6th in beige stocking stitch with one lemon shoulder and finished with beautiful hand stitched labels. We are sure this cardigan will have an interesting life and we can't wait to see what she does next!

Monday, 15 June 2009

Yesterday we waved goodbye to our Japanese friends, who made the last two weeks both a joy and a mystery. We have all been lost in translation, but our deep rooted love of textiles knitted us all together, and we have had a lot of laughs. They were very jolly characters and how they organised the food for the party, I'll never know. What we did understand, is that we all want to be together again, so watch this space.... Meiko and her crew will be back!

Thursday, 11 June 2009

Congratulations Sabrina Gschwandtner on making some beautiful work for the IASPIS organisation in Sweden. It's 3 pieces hung in the windows of the gallery. Each one took about a week to make and they are all sewn together with clear polyamide thread and 16 mm films recently "deaccessioned" from FIT's collection. The films are mostly educational shorts about various forms of women's work, like the processes of quilters, the history of Peruvian weaving, how to look for surface design inspiration in the world around you, etc. The titles of the 3 pieces are taken from the films used for each piece. She designed them thinking about string quilts, that form of quilting wherein narrow strips of leftover scrap fabrics are used. Thediamond in the third quilt is actually a log cabin-style square, a popular quilt design since the mid 1800s.

Thursday, 4 June 2009

It really feels like the end of term. Tomorrow (Friday) we will install the show at the Jerwood Space (which opens Wednesday) and celebrate our second birthday at Prick Your Finger by showing Meiko's 99 Knitted Lizards. Do come to our party, it's from 6-9pm!

Hopefully the day after I will sun bathe. Here is the 'Cheap and Chic' vision of a bikini.

" It's silly that the tiniest bikinis fetch ridiculous prices when it is so simple to create your own. It's just a twist of a wrist and two scarves. The ones shown here are 58 by 15 inches. For the bottom, cut the scarf on the solid line and fold on the dotted lines to make the back and front triangles. Fold the remaining materials in thirds to make a long triangle which is stitched in as the crotch; tie the corners at the hips and you have bikini pants. For the top use a similar scarf, same size, twist it in the centre and tie snugly in back or at neck."

Wednesday, 3 June 2009

This week Prick Your Finger is two years old. We are delighted to have 99 crochet lizards to help us celebrate. They were made in Japan by our artist in resident Meiko Yoshieda. She has knitted the 100th Lizard here. Please come to our party on Friday June 5th from 6-9pm and in the meen time enjoy this wonderful tune by the Flying Lizards.